Lamp Room

I have a room in my house that is technically a bedroom. (According to my home appraisal document.) It also has the potential to be an office. Or a Craft Room. Or a very snug Game Room.

Instead, it has become a Lamp Room.




Yes, there are six different lamps in that picture. With another three hidden behind the storage chest.

In my defense, it wasn't like I walked into the room, looked around, and thought hmmmm.... this would be an AWESOME place to display my lighting fixture collection. Some things just happen organically. A table light here, a floor lamp there, then bada bing! LAMP ROOM!

Clearly this room is actually a Junk Room. There is crap everywhere. Which only goes to show how overwhelming the percentage of Lampness is in the room. Even with random boxes everywhere, the lamps still shine through. It's not a junk room. It's a Lamp Room ... surrounded by a lot of junk.

I blame it mostly on my fickleness with lighting choices. I can walk into a furniture store and pick a coffee table with conviction people normally reserve for religious beliefs or dessert selection. (EPISCOPALIAN! CHOCOLATE RASPBERRY CHEESECAKE!) But when it comes to lamps, I'm pretty much ...ehhhhhh. I wander from store to store, looking at every combination of bronzed metal, brushed silver, and off-white shades. Nothing looks wrong, but nothing looks right. Eventually I get frustrated with my own uncertainty and just buy the one that is the ultimate combination of a) the cheapest and b) the easiest to carry to the check-out queue.  (Yes, I used "queue." I'm sick of my printer being the only thing that can reference a waiting line in British terms.)

Inevitably I regret the purchase. The shade is the wrong color. (Colour!) The metal finish seems garishly shiny or dirtily dull. (Daft!) And, even if those two features are actually okay, the scale is be way off. I mean, WAY off. In the store, the table lamps were Goliaths. But, propped up beside my overstuffed sofa, they come off looking like night lights and barely shine past the perimeter of the table below them.

(I feel should admit that my issues with estimating size isn't limited to just lamps. It extends to many other facets of my life: stopping distance behind cars, making cookies. I'll be scooping out dough with the exact same spoon, and one will come out the size of a quarter, with the next one spreading out to to the size of an above-ground pool cover. Which is why I now carry a ruler with me wherever I go. And only bake cookies alone.)

I get increasingly annoyed with how bad the lamp looks. Eventually I unplug it and stash it in my spare bedroom. Then I wind up sitting in the dark. Which leads me to go on another quest to find that elusive, perfect lamp. In an attempt to learn from my mistakes of the past, I try going in the opposite direction. Last lamp too small? This time I'll get a floor flamp! That one too outdated? I'll go modern with a square paper shade! So I wind up overcorrecting and, instead of shanking it, I hook it. So, after a few days of moving the new lamp to every possible corner of the room, I throw up my hands, unplug it, and plop it beside its rejected brethren.

You can imaging that, after a few cycles of this, boom. Lamp Room.

Also, in a cruel twist of irony, the Lamp Room is the darkest room in my house. The room has a light switch, but I'm having difficulty locating exactly which outlet this switch is supposed to switch on. I even had enough lamps to plug one into each socket, turn them all on, and then flip the switch to see which one it controlled. Nothing. So I just keep them all unplugged and feel my way to whatever I need out of the room. Which is never a lamp.

Last month, I finally ponied up some bucks and bought two lamps that seem to work pretty well. I have a good feeling about these. I think they're going to stick. They've certainly lasted way longer than any of their predecessors.

At this point, I have family members referring to it as the Lamp Room. It seems high time to rebrand.

My goal is to have this disaster of a room reorganized into something more useful. But, because reorganization seems way more time-intensive than just shutting the door (my current strategy), I know I'm going to need a pretty big carrot-and-stick combination to get me to do it.

So here's my plan: in a week I'm going to take a picture of the Lamp Room's current status and post it on this blog where anyone can see it. (Stick = public humiliation.) And, when I have successfully transformed it into something less lighting-like, I will celebrate with a sweet of some kind. (Carrot = dessert which will not involve carrots or vegetables of any kind.)

Let the rebranding begin!

Swing State Dear John Letter

Heyyyyyyyy!!

You from around here? Didn't think so, you seem like you're from out of town. Me? Oh, I've moved around a little, you know, Texas and -- WAIT! Where are you going?? I USED TO LIVE IN TEXAS! RIGHT NOW I LIVE IN OHIO!

Yeahhhh, thought that would get your attention. I'm looking a little more appealing now, aren't I? Does that do it for you, a permanent mailing address in Ohio? Does the 614 area code turn you on? Did I mention that I'm also .... undecided?

Yeah, that's right. You recognize me now. In fact, I'm the one you've been driving around just looking for.

Anyway, now that me and my eighteen electoral votes (that's right, I'm eighteen) have your undivided attention, let me give you a few tips.

I've noticed the hints you've been dropping around me during the past, oh, eleven months. I can't tell you how many times I've opened up my mailbox to have your letters pour out, shiny paper after shiny paper boasting sweet nothings. Seriously, I literally lost count of how many.

I've watched you on tv. I've seen my voicemail blinking on my phone, knowing that you left a message, just calling to say hello. I've sat in your traffic jams while listening to you chat me up over the radio. And, during this courtship, I've noticed something and would like to give you a little tip:

Try playing a little hard to get.

I'm serious! I know it's messed up, but you know how the game goes. The guy who's attentive and eager? He's a little too available. But the guy who's aloof, kind of ignores you? Man, that's hot.

So I'm just saying, tone it down a little. That's all. Try (robo)calling me a little less. Don't just drop by my convention center and local deli and college campus all the time. Be cazh. Hey, maybe we'll run into each other at a random airport terminal or a police barricade. Then we can laugh about a coincidence it was. Much more romantic than, you know, being bombarded with emails and notifications and signs insisting that I meet you somewhere. Tom Hanks never meets Meg Ryan by papering her Upper West Side apartment building with fliers about their first date.

And keep mind: it isn't the big gestures that speak the loudest. The only ones who want to be wooed by a big proclamation on a billboard are way too high maintenance. Us normal, well-balanced, fish out in the sea? We are all about the little things. The things that show that you really listen to us. Maybe plan your debates around my television schedule so you don't preempt any of my favorite shows? (You know how much I love New Girl. If you debate on New Girl night, I'm going to think you're just doing it out of spite.) Or make that, when you're visiting, you plan your route away from my work so that driving home for me takes twenty minutes and not two hours.

In fact, the best way for me to be interested is to pretty much act like you don't even want my vote. You're totally cool without it. Got other ballot prospects in your Blackberry. So, you know, go ahead and cancel the commercials, scoop up the signs, and don't call me. That's the best way to get me to call you.

**********************

(Think they believed me? Are they gone yet?)

(Okay, seriously? This is insane. If I get pelted one more time by a commercial break brimming with political attack ads, I'm gonna lose it. Swing state status started out kind of cool. You know, two powerful dudes fighting over your attention. But I'm starting to get the feeling that these guys slugging it out has little to do with winning my ballot box love and more about just loving to beat the crap out of each other. Can't wait until this election is over and we can go back to being ignored for the next three years. Nothing sexier than that.)

Don't Forget To Vote!